The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young

You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC.

Coming up in the program, we're going to be talking

to the founder of an endurance race so tough,

hardly anyone has ever finished it.

You always have to keep people

a little off guard.

The first rule of Barkley is don't talk about it.

If you talk about it,

then you're not going to be part of it.

So it's kind of secret?

It kind of weeds itself out.

If you belong here, you would find out how to get here.

This is about you by yourself against

all that out there.

So Laz, what is this?

This is my big map of Tennessee.

Where I have marked down most of the roads I've run on,

and I'm trying to think right now where my marker is

so I can mark in some that I've done

that I haven't put on there yet.

All the orange roads I've run, I remember them all.

Lots of hours went into this.

Lots of damn fun.

Yeah, I'd be curious to know in continuous time,

how many hours of running are in that map.

That guy is smarter than a whip, smarter than dickens.

He looks like an old hillbilly redneck, acts like one.

You know, people like to think of him as this sadist

for creating this race but,

that's not him at all.

I mean neither is he.

Neither is he

a bleeding heart.

There is nothing less pleasant to clean

than a rattlesnake.

I don't really even like the man very much,

but I love him.

Does this make any sense?

You know he was one of the original ultrarunners.

He was one of the original ones.

And what are the Memphis Runners?

It was just the first running club in Memphis.

What does that say '78?

Space Coast Marathon.

Yeah, '78.

Ah, that was a brutal race.

Yeah.

I used to wear shirts that size.

Those were the days.

I could run!

I could run fast.

It didn't seem like I was very fast then,

but I feel it would be really fast now,

if I could run the times I ran then.

So those are hidden away,

Sandra doesn't know I still have them.

Is your fuel gauge broken there?

No.

Oh okay.

We're just on empty?

No, E means excellent.

F means you're fucked.

It's on E we're in excellent shape,

we have plenty of gas.

Why, how does yours work?

Backwards?

Lazarus, Lazarus Lake,

in the white shirt and the cigarette over there,

the guy that hung up all the license plates,

he's a dangerous man.

He and Raw Dog are the guys that invented this race.

They made this race out of nothing, out of thin air.

Who is the mastermind behind the Barkley?

Oh, Raw Dog.

I have suggestions to make it easier,

but the harder I protest, the more that eggs him on.

He swears that it's you.

Which kind of leaves me obligated to swear that it's him.

Would you say the application process

is a secret?

Uh, it's not a very good secret

because hundreds of damn people are figuring it out.

It's like a series of complicated

ninja moves to get in.

Part of the application involves an exam.

I've never had to take an exam to get into a race before.

If you're selected, you get a letter of condolences,

Sorry to inform you,

you've been accepted to run the Barkley.

I guess I should get the map and some numbers

and stuff out now and,

start getting people signed in, see who's here.

Still Julian Jamison?

Still the same.

You're going to finish 19th.

Okay, do I even have to start?

And we now count you as starting.

And 29.

And at this point

we are counting you as a starter.

I'm Brett Maune.

I'm a physicist by training.

I do research in semiconductor devices.

I finished the Barkley last year.

I was the 10th finisher.

I feel like I have some unfinished business

with not getting the record.

The main goal is to try and break

Flyin' Brian Robinson's record of 55 hours,

42 minutes, and 27 or 37 seconds, I'm not sure.

So that's basically the goal.

I mean, then second to that just finishing,

then I'd be the only two-time finisher.

For the entrance fee.

Oh, okay, great.

Application fee.

I'm getting rich here.

We don't give anyone change.

No.

Well, a lot of people think it's $1.60

to enter the race, but that's really not accurate.

We charge $1.60 just to apply,

and we don't give the $1.60 back, we keep it.

And that's my retirement plan.

If you get accepted into the race,

then the first year when you're a virgin,

the first time you come, you have to give us

a license plate from your home state or home country.

There ya go.

You know, it was hard to get this off

the state trooper vehicle without just, sort of,

torching it so I cut off the top.

Something from France.

Something from France and we can tell this time.

Why? Because it says France?

And then in succeeding years, there's various things

really kind of according to

what it is I need.

For years we charged a white shirt.

Now I have a lot of white shirts.

So we charged socks until I had lots of socks.

Now we're charging a flannel shirt,

'til I get flannel shirts.

This is your shirt.

All right.

That one will be special because it's a German shirt.

Yeah, I had to translate the sizes.

Oh yeah,

in centimeters I would have had a really tiny shirt.

It's a pretty low budget production.

For anyone, regardless of their economic situation,

if they want to see that kind of a challenge;

it can be a poor college student, can afford to do it.

All right, John.

John Fegys.

Yeah, Fegy, that's me.

I'm John Fegyveresi, I'm from Pennsylvania.

I'm sort of just a poor,

stipend-funded grad student right now

and this is a great event for that

because it only costs $1.60 to do so.

This is my first time here.

I study glaciology and climate change,

paleo-climate actually.

Currently, I'm working on a project where

we're looking at an ice core from Antarctica.

Ah no, we like the Antarctica plate.

All right. There you go.

That will add a certain spice.

Numbers!

You like numbers right?

Sure, yeah.

Scientists and numbers, they almost go together.

This is the ugly truth and we now

are counting on you starting.

All right, here we go.

Thank you, sir.

You are officially in the starting field.

Fantastic.

It's hard to put a finger on it.

I don't remember exactly what it is I searched for.

Somebody may have said something,

Oh, you think that's hard,

you should look at this race they have down in Tennessee.

And I just started reading the race reports

and it just was so fascinating to me.

I was like, this is what I gotta try.

Basically, for the last six months I've done nothing

but eat, sleep, and breathe this event.

I think people have often said that

you could charge a huge fee

and people would pay it and come.

But I don't think you would get the same

collection of people.

You like to have people that will enjoy the race

and people that will enjoy each other.

And, plus, for a $1.60 and a license plate,

if people have complaints,

I can just laugh.

You are officially starting.